There won't be any excitement about the balance of power in Group D when the USA takes on Turkey in Los Angeles on Thursday, but this match makes sense in terms of gaining experience. Mauricio Pochettino will therefore have to find a balance between keeping his players fresh and avoiding unnecessary risks. If I were Poch, I wouldn't have played Christian Pulisic in this match. I understand the desire to keep it in good shape, but in this case the profits are smaller than the losses. The American team will be largely changed. Players who have yellow cards or those who suffer minor injuries will certainly not play. Those who have played little or not at all will get a chance to show themselves. However, I don't think this means that the USA will play less ambitiously. On the contrary, the reserve players will want to prove that they deserve to play in the next phase of the tournament. It will be especially interesting in attack, because in the previous matches the Americans mainly played defense, leading the match. The question arises who will enter the field and score a goal in the next phase, if necessary. Will it be Tim Weah or Alex Zendejas, for example? Or maybe Haji Wright or Brenden Aaronson? We don't know that yet. There is one player who definitely deserves more minutes, Gio Reyna. Coming off the bench, he scored a goal in the match against Paraguay. I wonder what role Pochettino will play in him, because in the previous match against Australia he played as a second striker, and in this match he can play on the wing. In turn, it will be interesting for the Turkish national team, because this team does not deserve to be eliminated from the tournament at all, and yet it will happen. In the first two matches, the Turks fired a total of 62 shots, but they never found the opponents' net! Their play was very dominant, but as soon as they lost a goal, they were unable to get back into the match. Arda Güler, Turkey's key player, has not been in top form in his matches so far, and his ability to be in the right place at the right time has let him down in this tournament. The competition on the wings also promises to be interesting. Kenan Yildiz plays in Turkey, who has played little in the matches so far and will now want to prove that he deserves more minutes. And in the USA there will probably be substitutes.
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